It was going to be the road not taken, but Al Morrow is now on a four-year path toward Rio.

The Hamilton-born rowing coach had figured that the 2012 London Olympics were likely his last Games and that his future would involve taking on less high-profile tasks within the Canadian rowing world.

He was happy with that potential scenario but the future officially changed when Rowing Canada announced this week that Morrow will be the new coach of the underperforming men’s lightweight division, which will move to the eastern training centre in London.

“We’ve been negotiating for a couple of months,” Morrow says. “I’ve made a four-year commitment to them, and they’ve made a four-year commitment to me.”

Morrow has been in London working with women’s rowers, mostly as head coach, since the training centre opened there in 1988. He’s been coaching national rowers for 36 years and is a member of Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame and Olympic Hall of Fame

Morrow’s appointment is part of a somewhat controversial restructuring of Rowing Canada’s coaching program that became inevitable after a weaker-than-expected showing in London. The two premier boats, the women’s and men’s eights, both won silver medals, but in other divisions the results were highly disappointing.

Although there are a number of men’s lightweight races in some regattas, only two are Olympic events. Canada didn’t even qualify a lightweight coxless fours for London and medal hopes Doug Vandor and Morgan Jarvis eventually finished 14th in lightweight doubles.

“It hasn’t been doing as well as it should in the last four years and the guys would say that, too,” Morrow says of the men’s lightweight program. “They’d say they’re disappointed.”

As part of the restructuring, Rowing Canada High Performance director Peter Cookson parted ways with 75-year-old Mike Spracklen, whose directness and outspoken manner has often resulted in discordant vibes within Canadian rowing circles. Among many other Olympic medals, he coached the 2012 men’s eights, including Mac grads Jerry Brown and Mike Csima, to an upset silver medal in London.

John Kehoe remains as high-performance director for the women’s team, which is based in London and will be joined by the men’s lightweights. While the roster is always thin in a post-Olympic year to accommodate retirements and rest seasons, Morrow expects that in the second, third and fourth years leading to Rio 2016 there will be about 10 or 12 lightweight men training in London and trying to earn one of the six lightweight seats available in Rio.

Morrow says Cookson’s aims in making the changes “are a lot simpler than people will make of it. He’s thinking ahead four years.”

Morrow’s been doing that for decades, and now he’ll be doing it again, heading toward his ninth Olympic Games.

Csima guest of honour

Doug Csima of the silver-medal winning men’s eights was the guest of honour at a boat christening ceremony over the weekend at the Leander Club.

Csima began his rowing career at Mac nine years ago and a new heavyweight coxed-four boat was named “Doug Csima and the Marauder Olympians.”

Leander christened two shells, one named for longtime coach and rower James Patrick Roche and the other for Mal Laforme, the 1985 world champion.